Lucerna 56 LUCERNA Issue 56 • January 2019 The Newsletter of The Roman Finds Group A LUCERNA: THE NEWSLETTER OF THE ROMAN FINDS GROUP ISSUE 56, JANUARY 2019 Editorial Contents To kick-off 2019, the 56th issue of Lucerna brings you RFG News and Notices 2 several features to whet your appetite for a brand new year of research. The first instalment comes from Gil Images of Silenus from the Burleigh and Ralph Jackson who, building on Gil’s Territorium of Romano-British Baldock 4 previous efforts overviewing some finds from in and Gil Burleigh & Ralph Jackson around Romano-British Baldock that we saw a year ago in Lucerna 54 (pp. 5-12), this time delve into some of the Roman Bone Gaming Counters images of Silenus from the very same ‘sacred landscape’. From Caistor St Edmund 7 The second featured article in this edition presents the Natasha Harlow results of some recently completed research on another group of Romano-British finds - this time from Caistor The RFG Autumn Conference 2018: St Edmund - where Natasha Harlow compellingly examines the bone counters from the civitas capital of Finds for the Dead in Roman London and Beyond 14 Venta Icenorum in the wider context of Roman board games and graffiti. Request for Information and Recent Publications 19 Subsequent features are, of course, those that regular Conferences and Events 21 Lucerna readers are familiar with, starting with our usual review of the exceptional Roman Finds Group Conference at Museum of London Docklands this past October entitled ‘Finds for the Dead in Roman London The Roman Finds Group Committee and Beyond’ and an overview of some of the upcoming books, conferences and events that may be of interest The Roman Finds Group Annual General Meeting was to fellow RFG members. Please also take some time to held on the 25th March 2018 at the Spring Conference consider Lindsay Banfield’s request for information in Canterbury where the existing Committee was about imported lava querns and millstones in Roman re-elected for the following year. A list of the current Britain as she seeks them out as part of her PhD research, Roman Finds Group Committee is provided below further details about which are available on p. 19. and will also soon be available on the Roman Finds Group website (http://www.romanfindsgroup.org.uk/ Finally, being January, may we gently remind you that roman+finds+group+committee). Details about the 2019 subscriptions are now due. If you would like to remain elections will be distributed to members in due course. a member please continue to make your payments as normal to Angela Wardle (details available on the following page). Many thanks to those who have already Chairman: Justine Bayley paid, and to everyone for their ongoing support, whether [email protected] that be at conferences or as part of our growing online community. Treasurer: Jenny Hall [email protected] We would like to sign off this time by thanking everyone who has contributed to this issue and wishing everyone Minutes Secretary: Evan Chapman a happy New Year as we look forward to the next exciting [email protected] 12 months ahead. Membership Secretary: Angela Wardle Matthew Fittock Emily Blanchard [email protected] Lucerna Editor Assistant Editor [email protected] Communications Secretary (and Website Manager): Nicola Hembrey [email protected] Meetings Co-ordinator: Stephen Greep [email protected] Lucerna Editor: Matthew Fittock [email protected] Datasheet Editor: Gill Dunn [email protected] Committee Members: Jörn Schuster - [email protected] Sally Worrell - [email protected] Front cover image: Bone counters with markings - potential Barbara Birley - [email protected] graffiti - from Caistor St Edmund. See p. 9. Edwin Wood - [email protected] Lucerna 56 RFG Membership Update • Group payment for individual RFG members to Instrumentum, the European bi-annual magazine. Join through RFG to receive four years’ worth of The Roman Finds Group is flourishing - we now have Instrumentum membership for three years payment. over 260 members! Until 2013, we had a fairly constant In addition the RFG will absorb the conversion membership of 150, although it was sometimes a fee in a bulk payment on your behalf. The cost for struggle to collect all the subscriptions. Since then our Instrumentum membership is currently 90 Euros for 4 membership has been increasing steadily to arrive at years. Members will be notified by email, inLucerna and our present figure. Many new members have joined at on the website when the next renewal is due. our very well-attended meetings, taking advantage of the members’ rate and I am pleased to say that most • Help us increase the Romano-British presence have remained with us. amongst a wider European small finds community e.g. by the provision of extra entries and links to objects in Thanks to the very many of you who have already the Instrumentum/Artefacts website. renewed subscriptions (£12 single; £15 joint) for 2019 by standing order, online payment or by cheque and a reminder to the rest that subscriptions are now due. I welcome cheques made out to the Roman Finds Group Follow the Roman Finds Group Online at my home address (below) and can email our bank details for online payments ([email protected]). Twitter (https://twitter.com/romanfindsgrp) Angela Wardle, Membership Secretary Our Roman Finds Group Twitter feed continues 1 Stebbing Farm, Fishers Green, to go from strength to strength. We regularly post Stevenage, Herts, SG1 2JB photographs, news items and links that may interest people with a passion for Roman objects, as well as sharing up-to-date information on the group. We post live-tweets from our conferences under the Membership Benefits hashtags #rfg2019 #rfg2018 #rfg2017 etc., so that people from across the world can attend ‘virtually’. We The objectives of the RFG are to promote the study, recently welcomed our 2531st follower! Do join us! @ research, publication, teaching and conservation of the RomanFindsGrp. material culture of Roman Britain. Membership of the RFG will entitle individuals to: Website (www.romanfindsgroup.org.uk) • Two copies of our Newsletter, Lucerna, each year. All of our tweets also appear in a scrolling feed on every page of our website www.romanfindsgroup. • Access to our Roman finds datasheets. org.uk, which contains more infor-mation, as well as some beautiful images. Our new website is now • Full access to the website (www.romanfindsgroup. fully operational and has been designed to work well org.uk) and twitter feeds, including the members on mobile phones, tablets and on desktop browsers. only section which includes access to recent copies of All Members of the Roman Finds Group may log Lucerna. The website has been developed to include into the new website and view extra resources that access to Lucerna and Datasheets and to include finds are exclusive to Members of RFG. These include the catalogues and other finds-related works which are latest four editions of Lucerna, the collection of Roman currently out-of-print as pdfs. Finds Group Datasheets, and a link to allow Members to download a facsimile of Manning’s 1985 Catalogue • Reduced fees to our twice-yearly meetings, held in of the Romano-British Iron Tools, Fittings and Weapons in the spring (typically a two day meeting) and autumn of the British Museum, a cornerstone of Roman small finds each year. study, and now out of print. As Jenny Hall wrote in Lucerna 48, we have ambitions for this to become the • Free/reduced entrance to major finds-related central source for Roman finds; we are working to scan exhibitions, where this can be negotiated. and host out-of-print finds catalogues, and to compile and maintain a detailed bibliography. Watch this space • Discounts on finds-related books, or pre-publication too for news on our forthcoming programme of short offers, where these can be negotiated. films on Roman finds! • Access to small grants to help with small finds research. Nicola Hembrey, RFG Communications Secretary These grants are available to individual, fully paid-up, members and will be awarded for applications seeking to support our objectives e.g. publication drawings and maps or travel to museums for object research. Special RFG Grants consideration is given to articles offered to Lucerna. £1,000 is available each year (reviewable). Details on how A series of small grants are available from the Roman to apply are on our website (www.romanfindsgroup.org. Finds Group to all fully paid-up members. The annual uk). grant cycle will run from January 1st. Applications may be made at any time, but they will be reviewed and • Access, through the website, to educational films assessed on 1st April, 1st September and 1st December. promoting the importance of finds research. Specialists The RFG has a target annual grant fund of £1,000, talk about identifying different materials and objects although this will be reviewed each year in light of in a series of films that might ultimately be themed available funds and demand. around the chapters of Artefacts in Roman Britain or Nina Crummy’s object categories. Grants will be awarded against any area of the Group’s 2 3 Lucerna 56 objectives (to promote the study, research, publication, skills, knowledge and expertise in the same field. As teaching and conservation of the material culture of well as fuller research articles, we would be particularly Roman Britain) but applications must be very clear as interested to hear about any old or new discoveries to which of these objectives are being applied. anyone is happy to share, as well as any mystery objects that need identifying.